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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:56 pm Post subject: Ariel bombardment: what are its merits? |
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It still sickens me that the case of a suicide bomber blowing up a bus full of civillians is rightly called an attrocity, but a casual bomb dropped on a bus or a house full of civillians, from the sky, is merely 'regrettable.'
This aerial onslaught is war at its most stupid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2007326,00.html
The images of US 'friendly fire' show how good bombers are at hurting, but how bad they are at winning
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| Watching a person kill another is the purest horror. Watching it done from the air, from a sanitised distance, is less so. Distance launders the bloodletting and technology purifies it. War becomes another video game. The camera sees no broken bodies. If it sees a mistake it does not see the mistake that caused the mistake. |
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When bombing from the air kills non-combatants, as it does to an appalling degree, there should at least be a military inquiry into why. This, if nothing else, vindicates the publicity given to the Hull case. Massacres committed by infantrymen are subject to courts martial. If soldiers enter a house by the front door and kill civilians inside, then they are hauled before world opinion and condemned. If a dropped bomb enters the same house through the roof and has the same effect, it is dismissed as collateral damage. In Iraq it is not even recorded.
That military strategy is so casual about bomb inaccuracy is largely due to the technological glamour attached to air forces as against ground troops. The latter are always worse equipped and worse protected. Air commanders have long oversold the efficacy of strategic bombing and ignore the degree to which, in counter-insurgency war, such bombardment can be wildly counter-productive. The destruction of non-military targets and the incidental killing of civilians is far more damaging to the cause of victory than friendly-fire casualties that attract so much publicity and inquiry.
The recent recourse of British troops in Afghanistan to aerial bombardment has, by general agreement, set back the cause of winning hearts and minds. A relative killed or a village destroyed only fertilises the desire for revenge. "One dead Pashtun recruits 10 Taliban," is not an idle boast. Close air support may win one day's battle, but only to necessitate another. Yet Nato forces in Afghanistan continue to bomb villages from the air.
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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It is FAR more humane to die from a bomb dropped by a plane.
Everyone knows that. |
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daskalos
Joined: 19 May 2006
Location: The Road to Ithaca
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 7:19 am Post subject: |
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I know this is just splitting hairs, but given a choice between a bomb falling on my house and my dying, even if not instantly, and having some crazed and hateful soldier burst my door down, look me in the eye and gun me down (if in fact he didn't rape or torture me first), I'd take death falling from the sky any old day.
They're both awful and they're both to be lamented, but it's not just the for the perpetrator that the death is sanitized from the air. (Though, for the perpetrator, the death is not actually sanitized -- it is still a debt on his/her soul.) The innocent victim, though, has no debt on his/her soul. If I were the innocent victim -- and the human story is, after all, among many other things, the story of innocent victimhood -- let me not know, let me not come face to face with my killer, whose hate I will be no more able to fathom than the bomb dropping from the sky but who's anger will make the last few minutes before I die that much more horrible.
I know, just splitting hairs.
War is bad and people die in them, but sometimes there are worse things than war and people dying.
[fixed a couple typos]
Last edited by daskalos on Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:32 am; edited 1 time in total |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 7:37 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
It is FAR more humane to die from a bomb dropped by a plane.
Everyone knows that. |
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Svetlana
Joined: 22 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:14 am Post subject: |
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| The American military is incompetent. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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| How could there be any merits to bombing that cute little mermaid girl from "The Little Mermaid?" Wasn't her name Ariel? |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Isnt Ariel Sharon dead? Why bombard him? |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. Question is will she marry her daughter off at the age of 11 to one of these guys? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
Don't be bloody stupid. You can't always help knowing people. One guy was someone who always hung around the pool table at the bar we drank. We only talked to him as we waited for our game. He had as much right to play pool as we did. You are a nincompoop. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
Don't be bloody stupid. You can't always help knowing people. One guy was someone who always hung around the pool table at the bar we drank. We only talked to him as we waited for our game. He had as much right to play pool as we did. You are a nincompoop. |
Stupidest thing Ive ever read. You cant help knowing people? You cant help knowing about people. You CAN control who you have any sort of interaction with. You choose to know terrorist wannabes. Is your daughter promised to them? Sharia law, here she comes, eh? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
Don't be bloody stupid. You can't always help knowing people. One guy was someone who always hung around the pool table at the bar we drank. We only talked to him as we waited for our game. He had as much right to play pool as we did. You are a nincompoop. |
Stupidest thing Ive ever read. You cant help knowing people? You cant help knowing about people. You CAN control who you have any sort of interaction with. You choose to know terrorist wannabes. Is your daughter promised to them? Sharia law, here she comes, eh? |
Sigh. I wish I could help knowing you. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
Jeez, jinju, the kind of posts you've been making you're hardly one to be talking about mental health. |
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tiger fancini
Joined: 21 Mar 2006
Location: Testicles for Eyes
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| jinju wrote: |
| Whats funny is that big bird (capitals purposfully not used) has admitted to being friends with people who support the kind of violent extremism that Al Qaeda practices. big bird is FRIENDS with such people. |
That's news to me. I said I knew a couple of guys (acquaintances) that had some sympathy for jihadists, but that my Arab friends did not approve of these guys' views, and had argued with them. Perhaps someone has serious reading comprehension difficulties? |
You admit it again. If you were a mentally healthy indivisual you wouldnt have such "acquaintances" |
Don't be bloody stupid. You can't always help knowing people. One guy was someone who always hung around the pool table at the bar we drank. We only talked to him as we waited for our game. He had as much right to play pool as we did. You are a nincompoop. |
Stupidest thing Ive ever read. You cant help knowing people? You cant help knowing about people. You CAN control who you have any sort of interaction with. You choose to know terrorist wannabes. Is your daughter promised to them? Sharia law, here she comes, eh? |
The stupidest stuff I've ever read is the s-hite coming from your posts on this thread. What exactly are you trying to say? Are you giving your worldly advice on who people should interact with? Instead of talking to people in bars, you expect people to 'control' themselves? And what is this, frankly quite disturbing, obsession with BB's daughter all about? |
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